What they don't tell you about grief, and the inexplicable fade-in and fade-out way that it appears in your life, is the frustration that goes along with it.

Now that I think about it, maybe they do tell you about it. I never got that far in any of the books I picked up about the subject, because they were altogether too depressing to finish. If I wanted to be depressed, all I have to do is sit in a room and not talk for three minutes. The cost of the books was better spent on low-fat frappucinos and frothy Irish chick-lit.

I went through a period of anger, and a period of disbelief flavoured with anger, and then I went through more sadness, and more anger at how sad I still was, and now I'm just angry at how angry I continue to be.

Please don't mistake me; I don't walk around seeing red anymore. Not every day, anyway, and sometimes, not every week. But I - we - are not the same. I bristle quickly; have no patience for silliness that isn't mine. I've become, I'm afraid to admit, quite obnoxious, quite the pain in the ass.

Eighteen months, man. You'd think it'd have gotten better, and in many ways, it has. The sky isn't so dark, and the things we do for fun are sometimes just because they're fun, and not some desperate grasping at happiness as a form of distraction and relief.

I guess the worst part – and I imagine that this is what’s feeding my frustration - is that the house is, I think, pretty empty of Frankie now. It's been eighteen months after all, and the energy I imagined - believed - I felt has faded, dissipated, been scattered by the comings and goings of people and time. The walls are still standing, but that’s all they do. There’s nothing hidden in them, emanating from them; there is no invisible something there anymore.

There is no way to describe it, or define it, but you must believe me. I didn't really know it was gone until it was, and they only to put it into words is that what once was, isn't anymore. The rooms are different, the air is different, the furniture is now just furniture. Frankie has left the building.

My instinct is to justify it, to ask you if that makes sense to you, but of course, that doesn't really matter, does it? It doesn't matter if it sounds crazy or not, and at any rate, it doesn't matter anymore. It's all gone now. The only Frankie left is what’s been captured on film, and what’s still in my head.

I suppose all this is coming to head now because it's his birthday next week. Twenty-seven is bad age to be already dead for a year and a half.